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Ummm. Has it occurred to you that we are talking about illegal immigrants here, hasn't it? We're not talking about the Edmund Pettis Bridge.

What's more, has it occurred to you that this legislation essentially protects the lower income workers in this state? Because if you are a blue collar worker, whether you are black or white, an illegal immigrant making a living here will either threaten your job or force you to work for a lower wage to remain competitive.

Hey, don't take my word for it. Wander onto any construction site, fast-food restaurant, or assembly line in our state. Chances are, you'll find illegals working there. And every single one of those illegals working there means that an Alabama citizen, the guy who played by the rules, doesn't have a job.

So why don't we abandon the kneejerk race-baiting here? It's lazy and has zip to do with either the motivation or the problem to be solved.

Thank you! This is exactly what is happening in our states and we are 1 of the 22 waiting in the wings to pass a law. Meatpacking is dang near down to minimum wage when it used to support a family of 5 quite nicely. Same with construction work. Not everyone goes to college.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala (Reuters) – Republican Governor Robert Bentley on Thursday signed into law a crackdown on illegal immigration in Alabama that both supporters and critics consider the toughest in the nation.
Under the new measure, police must detain someone they suspect of being in the country illegally if the person cannot produce proper documentation when stopped for any reason.

It also will be a crime to knowingly transport or harbor someone who is in the country illegally. The law imposes penalties on businesses that knowingly employ someone without legal resident status. A company's business license could be suspended or revoked.

The law requires Alabama businesses to use a database called E-Verify to confirm the immigration status of new employees.

Thank you! This is exactly what is happening in our states and we are 1 of the 22 waiting in the wings to pass a law. Meatpacking is dang near down to minimum wage when it used to support a family of 5 quite nicely. Same with construction work. Not everyone goes to college.

Sorry, but you couldn't be more wrong. In a system where a labor pool expands beyond the actual growth of the economy, then you have downward pressure on wages, particularly in the lower tiers of the work force. That's because you have higher number of available hands chasing a finite number of jobs, so labor becomes a commodity. That's just elementary economics.

There are an estimated 120,000 illegal immigrants in Alabama alone, and most of them have jobs. Having known my fair share of contractors and developers, I know the wages for illegals versus citizens and documented aliens. There simply is no comparison. So if you have the choice of hiring an illegal day laborer at $8 an hour versus someone else at $10-$12 an hour to essentially haul bricks and various other unskilled jobs, which worker do you choose?

Repeat this scenario on factory floors, in fast-food restaurants, in hotels, and in chicken processing plants, and an enlightened person begins to understand how chronic the problem can be for those in the lowest economic classes.

Tell you what, Hob. Why don't you tell us what you do for a living? I'd be willing to bet it's in a profession where an illegal poses no threat to your livelihood and the entire issue is an abstraction. However, if you were an average blue-collar worker, I'm fairly certain that you would be taking an entirely different view of the matter.

I do live in Alabama. I have wondered why there is so little support for education in our legislature, the one thing that would certainly make the employment pool more attractive to what few companies have not yet taken their family wage jobs to a factory in China or Central America.
I think part of the opposition to an Alabama lottery strictly for education support was that it was not "Christian". This was widely discussed here.
So Alabamans continue to buy lottery tickets in bordering states, and the Alabama legislature is free to produce this very aggressive law.
The Deputy who lives on our street is even shaking his head about this law.

Now what do you think will happen when they have to raise wages? You don't think the price of the goods and service would jump or worse yet businesses close or outsource?

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Outsource agriculture? Sort of hard to do.
Some American workers that have been screwed by ILLEGAL workers: the meatpacking industry is a prime example. I was working in a meat packing plant when I was going to College in the late 1960's. Even after I graduated from college I decided to stay with the packing plant because I could make more money there than I could in the field I had a degree in (Microbiology). I saved enough money by 1974 to go into my own business. When I left the meat packing business in 1974 HORMEL was paying their workers MORE than they are now. There were ZERO illegals in their plants at that time. Some Hispanics but illegals were rare. A few years later illegals comprised a majority of the workers and wages were lower than they were in the 1960s. Did the price of meat come down? Hell no. For a few months about ten years ago LIVE hogs were selling for less than $10/pound at a time when the cost of production to a pork producer was $40/pound. Did the price of a pork chop come down in the grocery store? Hell no.

Americans will work in meat packing houses and farm production jobs IF the jobs pay a decent wage. Illegals will do it for half that. Do I blame the illegals 100%? Hell no. The greedy employers are the ones we should be going after. When the jobs for illegals dry up they will stay home. Good riddance.

Sorry, but you couldn't be more wrong. In a system where a labor pool expands beyond the actual growth of the economy, then you have downward pressure on wages, particularly in the lower tiers of the work force. That's because you have higher number of available hands chasing a finite number of jobs, so labor becomes a commodity. That's just elementary economics.

There are an estimated 120,000 illegal immigrants in Alabama alone, and most of them have jobs. Having known my fair share of contractors and developers, I know the wages for illegals versus citizens and documented aliens. There simply is no comparison. So if you have the choice of hiring an illegal day laborer at $8 an hour versus someone else at $10-$12 an hour to essentially haul bricks and various other unskilled jobs, which worker do you choose?

Repeat this scenario on factory floors, in fast-food restaurants, in hotels, and in chicken processing plants, and an enlightened person begins to understand how chronic the problem can be for those in the lowest economic classes.

Tell you what, Hob. Why don't you tell us what you do for a living? I'd be willing to bet it's in a profession where an illegal poses no threat to your livelihood and the entire issue is an abstraction. However, if you were an average blue-collar worker, I'm fairly certain that you would be taking an entirely different view of the matter.

Dude, the days off a blue collar worker being able to take care of a family and live in a home with a white picket fence with 2 kids and a house wife and stll have a middleclass existance were long over before illegals "invaded". The value of the dollar dropping due to our governments insane spending means our standard of living have for the lower and middle classes in particular have constantly been dropping since the 50s. Inflation and globalism(causing other countries to catch up to us) are the blame. Your living in a fantasy world if you think shipping illegal Mexicans back across the border is going to brings back to the good old days man.

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